The Great Spa Towns of Europe

• need to adjust boundaries / extend buffer zones of some components
• review / implement management plans

N/A

On 30 November 2022, the seven States Parties submitted a joint state of conservation report, which is available at https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1613/documents/. Progress on a number of conservation issues raised by the Committee at the time of inscription is presented in this report, as follows:

• The boundaries of Baden bei Wien (Austria) and Montecatini Terme (Italy) have been adjusted and approved by the relevant authorities;
• The buffer zone of Karlovy Vary (Czechia) has been extended. The extension of the buffer zone of Vichy (France) is ongoing;
• The municipal council of Bad Kissingen (Germany) approved a “municipal heritage concept” aimed at strengthening the protection of the component part. However, more time is required to complete the consultative processes and the requirements of new legislation;
• The State Party of Belgium has taken measures to extend the ZPU in Spa to include the areas of the component part most suitable to be protected under this type of designation and identified further actions related to villa-type buildings or to non-urbanised areas to be included in the Local Management Plan;
• The Local Management Plans for Františkovy Lázně (Czechia), Karlovy Vary (Czechia), Mariánské Lázně (Czechia), Vichy (France) and Bad Ems (Germany) have all been approved;
• The State Party of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is developing a Combined Management Plan for Bath, which incorporates elements of the City of Bath World Heritage Site Management Plan (2016-2022) and the Local Management Plan for Bath as a Spa, with a view to completing the Combined Management Plan (2022-2028) in the summer of 2023;
• Site managers for all component parts have been appointed;
• Improvements to the monitoring programme for the property as a whole remain to be addressed;
• A workshop on Impact Assessments was organised on 22-23 November 2022;
• The States Parties contacted the World Heritage Centre regarding doubts about the scope of the Committee’s recommendation related to the role of the Great Spas Management Board in assessing the potential cumulative impacts of developments projects in the component parts on the property as a whole.

On 13 February 2023, the State Party of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland informed the World Heritage Centre, in line with Paragraph 172 of the Operational Guidelines, about the redevelopment of the site of the former Gasworks at the Bath component. The World Heritage Centre transmitted the corresponding ICOMOS Technical Review on 28 April 2023 and in line with Paragraph 174 of the Operational Guidelines transmitted third party information on the planned redevelopment of the Rugby Stadium located in the Bath component to which the State Party replied on 5 May 2023 informing that the proposal will be referred to the World Heritage Centre for technical review by ICOMOS once the relevant project documents are available.

On 31 March 2023, the State Party of Belgium informed the World Heritage Centre about a planned mobility enhancement project in the city centre of Spa, including cycle-pedestrian facilities, the redevelopment of municipal roads and adjacent public spaces.

The States Parties have made progress in addressing the recommendations made by the World Heritage Committee, albeit to varying degrees. The delimitations of the component parts of Baden bei Wien and Montecatini Terme have been modified in accordance with the request of the Committee, and new maps have been provided. The extension of the buffer zone of Karlovy Vary was also completed. The State Party of France has launched a process to extend the buffer zone of Vichy. This process and validation of the new perimeter of the buffer zone are expected to be concluded by September 2023. The States Parties inform that a request for a minor boundary modification will only be submitted once all the requested revisions have been achieved.

The information provided in relation to the Committee’s recommendations to extend or confirm the legal protective mechanisms in Baden bei Wien, Montecatini Terme, Spa, Bad Ems and Bad Kissingen is considered insufficient and cannot be verified as no maps were provided in this regard. The purpose of these recommendations was to ensure that existing legal protective designations at the national level recognise each of those component parts as a single conservation area. Therefore, it is recommended that the respective States Parties continue their efforts to strengthen the legal protection of those component parts. Detailed maps showing the extent of the legal designations in place should be requested.

The development of a Combined Management Plan for Bath is seen by the State Party concerned as an opportunity to reconcile inconsistencies between the provisions of the separate existing management plans and is welcomed. This plan has been conceived in two parts. A rough draft of the first part, which mainly sets out factual information about the property, is included in the State Party’s state of conservation report. The second part, which is said to identify issues, actions and matters of governance, was not included. Completion of the plan is expected in the summer of 2023.

The ICOMOS Technical Review (April 2023) of the proposed redevelopment of the site of the former Gasworks in Bath, which is part of Bath Western Riverside project, found that current plans would have a highly negative impact on the Outstanding Universal Value of the property and should not be approved and a revised regeneration project be elaborated.

The appointment of site managers in all the component parts is also welcomed, as are the efforts made to raise their capacities, via a series of workshops. The States Parties informed that these workshops were fundamental to create a shared understanding of the transnational property. In addition, the workshops discussed elements linked to the implementation of the Committee’s recommendations. Although the importance of these workshops is recognized as a means to set the foundations for the future implementation of those recommendations, no significant progress has been made so far.

The States Parties report that the implementation of the Committee’s recommendations regarding the monitoring programme, Impact Assessment procedures, and the role of the Great Spas Management Board in the assessment of cumulative impacts of development projects, requires more time. These topics are interrelated and therefore need a combined approach that is also in line with the 2011 Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape. A workshop on impact assessments, held in November 2022, provided a basis to start comparing the methodologies and legal frameworks applied across the different States Parties. Another workshop was expected to take place in May 2023, to be followed by a conference concerning measuring the impacts of urban developments on components. It is recommended that the States Parties use this next workshop to define a clear roadmap for the implementation of all the Committee’s recommendations.